Monthly Archives: November 2017

Each weekday, on my cycle commute to work , I pass the old gasworks site in Hamilton North. Jemena, the current owners of the land are in the process of remediating the site to deal with the nasty chemicals left behind from years of turning coal into town gas. So when I saw that Jemena were holding a community consultation session about the project in my local bowling club, I thought I’d summon up my ‘inner MacLean’ and pop in to see what’s happening.

As an engaged citizen interacting with a corporate behemoth, I felt a vague obligation to be angry, disputatious and reactionary. But as they explained that the Stage 2 remediation consists of a ‘cap and contain’ scheme of building a 9 metre deep wall near the western boundary to stop groundwater passing through the site into Styx Creek, along with a water impervious cover to stop rainwater infiltration, my main reaction was “That sounds like a good idea.”

The currently planned schedule (subject to jumping through all the right bureaucratic hoops in a timely fashion) is for the Stage 2 remediation construction to start in late 2018 and to be completed in early 2020. And I’ll get to watch (and smell) it each day as I cycle past.

Although the community consultation session was about the remediation of the site, and not what might be done with the site afterwards, I still put forward my dream of a cycleway along the creek one day.

accusurance. noun. A word or phrase that can either be an accusation or a reassurance, depending on the tone of voice you use.

As an example, in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and later, if you initiate an action that doesn’t complete immediately you get told that the system is “Working on it …” along with the reassuring message that “This shouldn’t take long.”

Usually it doesn’t take long, but sometimes it does. Sometimes it drags on interminably, and leads to an accusatory response by the user of “This shouldn’t take long!”

Another example of accusurance is the phrase “nice one”, which can either mean a reassuring and gentle expression of appreciation, or a sarcastic accusation of having f***ed up.